I thought all Elseworlds are accessible via Hypertime.
Unless he has changed again ( I have not been following Superman for the last few years) Mr Mxyzptlk sets the conditions for his return everytime he shows up. The first time it was saying his name backwards, but it has been something else everytime since then. One of those times was painting his face. This is one of the changes Byrne introduced that I have liked.
Since it’s been mentioned several times now – what’s Hypertime?
Hypertime is DC’s way to brush ALL continuity questions under a giant rug.
You see, instead of there being a whole bunch of (mostly) independent time-lines (your old Earth-1, Earth-C, ad infinitum) there is really only one timelime and continuity. However, eddys and countercurrents do exist in the time stream.
Therefore, any of those pesky memories you may have of Superman fighting Nazis during WWII, or of Batman having a sense of humour or proportion are the result of Hypertime. The Legion can remember having Superboy as a member because one loop of Hypertime DID have that Superboy, although when it re-merged with the main channel of time that Superboy became imaginary.
It is different from the old Worlds concept, because it allows cross-contamination from different histories. Or something like that.
Or maybe it is just an attempt to coddle the raving fanboys while allowing the writers to not be straightjacketed by earlier plot points.
Did Galactus have a herald before the Silver Surfer?
How long was Mr. Radd a herald before his guilty conscience drove him to rebel?
Given the dismal success rate of his adopt-a-herald program, why exactly does Galactus continue to create them? (Assuming that he got along okay before Norrin’s offer.)
Is Nova the exception that proves the rule? I saw her creation and her appearances in Byrne’s run on FF, but I’ve heard that she’s dead. She seemed tempermentally suited to heraldry, though; what’s the deal?
Did Galactus really need her help to find the frickin’ Skrull homeworld?
Does everyone still accept that Galactus is a natural and necessary part of the universe, as they found out during the Trial of Reed Richards (Byrne’s finest hour on FF, methinks)? Or has that been retconned/ignored/amended/whatever?
No. In SS#1, recounting his origin, we see Galactus musing that if he had some minion scouting out worlds for him, he could avoid eating worlds with intelligent life. Norrin Radd then offered up the idea of becoming his herald, in exchange for sparing Zenn-La.
Given that we saw him almost reunited with his girlfriend Shalla Bal at least once (SS#3) he obvious did not spend millenia with Galactus before coming to Earth.
Actually, his second herald, Gabriel Lan the Air-Walker, was an ideal choice. His motivation for accepting heraldship was the possibility of endless travel and exploration, and would apparently pass countless hours listening to Galactus’ tales of the wonders he had seen over the eons. He was probably the first friend Galactus had ever had. Unfortunately, he was slain by the alien Ovoids, and Galactus was too weak at the time to revive him. Granted, Firelord was an indifferent choice, and Terrax was a disaster, but Nova seemed to work pretty well.
Don’t know. Stopped reading Marvel after '86
No. At the beginning of that particular story, he was obsessed with finding planets that had no intelligent life (due to the fact that Reed Richards saving his life made him squeamish about causing the deaths of others) until Death appeared to him and basically said, “Get over it. This is who you are. Deal with it.” Then Nova appeared and said, “Hey, here’s the Skrull throneworld!” G said, “Oh, all right,” and ate it.
See my answer to #4
Right now, Galactus is a star. Not a pop star, but an actual celestial body. This happened in the “Galactus the Devourer” mini from a couple years ago.
–Cliffy
You’re right, but lately he’s just been going with the backwards name thing, though recently when Mxy popped in he suggested to Superman that this time both Supes and Mxy would have to wear their underwear on the outside before he’d leave, and since Supes did anyway he was halfway there.
Superman was very busy and in a bad mood, so Mxy just said never mind, said his name backwards and disappeared.
This is actually kind of significant, since it suggests that the method of moving between the dimensions does involve the name reversal, but the reason for leaving is what Mxy determines as a game whenever he visits.
The name reversal thing was also used in JLA during the Crisis Times Five storyline a couple of years ago when they decided Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt was also originally from the 5th Dimension. (He played bass.)
Psycho Pirate: Super Duper was an android created by a minor (I mean a non-super-powered, stupid normal crook) villain from an alien device that came to earth. It was supposed to have the powers of Wonder Woman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Hawkman. I think it debuted in JLA 34, the issue where Hawkman joins the Legion and made a brief reappearence in the 60’s, where T.O. Morrow takes on the JLA and JSA.
Max Carnage: The Black Cat now has bi leanings? What issue do you cite as proof? I’m not questioning you, man, but that is something I would like to read.
Excuse my stupidity, but I meant Hawkman joins the JLA. (Must remind self to preview next time.)
BTW, Psycho Pirate, I dont’ know if Super Duper made any appearances after that.
It’s a throwaway line in Black Cat/Spider-Man: The Evil that Men Do #1, page 5, last panel, but still significant. She states it’s been too long since she’s had a boyfriend…or a girlfriend for that matter.
Check out the Dot.Comic version. Free section under Spider-Man/Black Cat.
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JLofA #31: “The Riddle of the Runaway Room”
Fenris, who hasn’t thought of that story in years! 
But on the other hand, the entire universe panicked when the Silver Surfer flew by so there was time for just about every civilization in the universe to know about the Surfer and it was long enough that (apparently) Norrin forgot that he was ever human (sort of…see below). They’ve tried a number of retcons: Zenn-Laians live a loooooooong time: near immortal and Norrin just forgot his heritage, or Galactus stole part of Surfer’s soul but none of 'em really resolve the problem that the Surfer has two incompatible origins.
In the original trilogy, Kirby had envisioned the Surfer as a construct created by Galactus like the Punisher-bot. (no relation to Frank Castle), which made Alicia’s speech that much more powerful and it makes his conversion that much more dramatic. One of the reasons that Kirby was unwilling to work on the Silver Surfer series was that he and Lee had a big disagreement about the retconned “Surfer Christ-Superstar” origin that Lee created in Silver Surfer #1.
Lookit what he says in FF #49. First he tells Alicia that the concept of eating is completely foriegn to him, and later when Alicia is showing him the teeming millions of humanity he says something like “Never before have I viewed a species from such close range.”
And in number #50, he says “I was born to soar the spaceways, now I am trapped on one planet…”
There’s really no way to reconcile the two origins (and I like the Kirby version better)
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I think she died too, but I don’t know the details. I think it was in the Silver Surfer comic book.
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Nah; even in that story, Reed only convinced a majority of people that Galactus was necessary, he didn’t convince everyone and a sizable minority still believe that Reed is wrong.
Fenris
Even the Silver Surfer read the Straight Dope
I saw the stuff in Crisis Times Five, but I didn’t know what they were doing in the Superman titles right now. It seems like they have sort of combined the 2 different setups. Mxy definitely did not have to say his name backwards right after the reboot, so it sounds like a writer or editor has missed that and added it back in. Too bad, I liked the new way better.
Lok
Yeah well look at Goober now. Guess he never got that promotion.
I have 4 DC questions:
Where did Black Adam come from? I know he was supposed to be Captain Marvel before CM was there, but he (somewhat)understandably went bad. What happened next? I’ve heard he was banished to outer space, to another dimension, has a hulk-like thing in a descendant…what’s the real deal? (he’s one of my favorite villians; I just gotta know!)
Isn’t it true that in the very very beginning of the Batman stories that he would kill crooks at the drop of a hat? What made them change? Not that I’m complaining, just curious.
Where did Superman’s vulnerability to magic come from? I was impressed with Kingdom Come.
Have they ever said flat out why the Joker is still alive? I mean aside from the obvious that they can’t kill off such an infamous villain? I’ve heard that they might do it however. (The ending of No Man’s Land really pissed me off. It wasn’t noble, it was stupid! KILL HIM!)
Pre-Crisis, I agree.
The wizard, Shazam was a super-hero for years, but got old and retired. He offered to share his powers with Teth-Adam who used them for evil and was banished “to the farthest star”. He made his way back, fought the Marvel Family to a standstill until Uncle Dudley tricked him into saying “Shazam” again and turning back to Teth Adam.
Post-Crisis, he’s been retconned and reretconned. Originally, he was an Egyptiian hero turned bad-guy with the same origin, but his descendant, Theo Adam found an amulet that first gave him the powers and later the personality of Black Adam. Now in JSA they’ve retconned it some more and Black Adam wasn’t all that bad of a guy. His “crime” was being overzealous during a war while defending his family…or something. I love JSA, but I hate the current trend of making one of the great villians all cuddly and fuzzy.
For a brilliant and horrific take on Black Adam, if you can get your hands on Alan Moore’s MiracleMan #1-15, you’ll see a take on Black Adam that’ll make your hair stand on end. Unfortunately, MiracleMan is rarer than hell because Todd McFarlane is an asshole. (long story: he’s (IMO) illegally squatting on the rights to republish)
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Nah. He may killed one or two times (he also used a gun), but it’s overstated. Basically they were trying to get away from the brutality of the pulp characters and it took 'em a bit to perfect the formula. I doubt that Batman killed 3 people.
What made them change? Robin. Seriously. Th’ kid was the hottest character for a while and the editors were uncomfortable with the more savage Batman palling around with a kid. Keep in mind, Batman appeared in Detective #27 and Robin appeared in Detective 38, so we’re only talking 10 issues where he could have been brutal…and generally he wasn’t.
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Myxztplk (sp), mainly. In the '40s, Myx was one of the few characters who could physically affect him and I guess it just stuck. By the late '50s, Superman had become a SCIENCE-HERO! and naturally magic is the opposite of science.
Keep in mind, he was vulnerable to magic as much as, but not more than a normal person was. It wasn’t until the mid-to-late '70s that he became hyper-vunerable to magic (more than a normal person is). The first time I remember seeing the hyper-vunerablility was in the Earthwar storyline in Legion, circa 1977 (Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes #244, give or take)
Anyway, the “he’s science-based” non-explaination lasted 'till the mid/late '70s when Gerry Conway, in one of his typically stupid moves, decided to try to “scientifically” explain something that no-one needed or wanted an explaination for. Per Conway, after Neanderthals, there were two branches of humanity: Homo Sapiens and Homo Magi (who had the genetic ability to work magic :rolleyes: ). Because of cross-breeding, (we’re cross-fertile with Homo Magi…and why didn’t they out compete us. Being able to conjur food and potable water out of nowhere with no effort at all is a pretty strong survival advantage) all humans have at least a tiny bit of whatever genetic component does magic. Superman, being a Kryptonian, has none. In addition to it being an explaination for an explanations’s sake, it causes many more problems than it solves: For example, what about all those alien sorcerers like Mordru (he was an alien back then, the Gemworld retcon was 10 years in his future)? It’s been more ignored than the hated Clark Kent’s hypno-glasses is why no one suspects that Clark is Superman unwanted explaination.
There was another retcon in (IIRC) the novelization of Kingdom Come that I don’t remember the details of, but per the author (Elliot S! Maggin: the greatest Superman writer of the last 25 years) the vulnerablity is psychological which I thought was interesting.
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They’ve tried a dozen explainations: He’s truely not mentally competent to stand trial, he’s a decent human deep down, if only we could bring it out, Gotham doesn’t have a death penalty, etc. None of 'em make ANY sense, especially since what should happen is that he should have been “assassinated” long ago by a citizen of Gotham with a concealed weapon.
What it comes down to is that the Joker is more famous than, say, the Fantastic Four and he’s too valueable a property to kill off. Frankly I wish they’d quit the lame explainations: none of 'em work at all and they simply make Batman, the Gotham Police, the Spectre and everyone else who’s tried to justify letting him live out to be morons.
Fenris
ok, 3 more:
What happened to Black Manta (and when did they decide the Black part of his name was literal i.e. that he was African(-American, don’t know if he was American.)? He was the first black villian I’d seen.
What is the most obscure character (DC & Marvel) ever to be (interestingly)retconned into becoming a major player?
In Marvel, is the mutant gene connected to the “grow large breasts” gene? Why do they all wear skintight clothes and look so frustratingly sexy? (My friend thought of this one, not I. I’m a DC girl fan myself )
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Post-Crisis? I don’t thinkhe’s been seen. If he’s shown up, it’s been minor in any case.
I’m pretty sure he became black right after snuffing Aqua-baby, about 1978 or so: I remember a scene where, after Aqua-baby dies, Manta pulls off his helmet and Aquaman gasps. Black Manta says “Why do you think I call myself “Black” Manta, stupid?” (He also had a bad '70s big-afro)
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Probably Swamp Thing. He’d had like 35 appearances between 1972-1984 or so. Then Alan Moore did the the best recon I’ve ever seen and suddenly he’s in everything and everywhere and a major player. Then Nancy Collins and her successors ruined him and he’s been mostly gone for the last 10 years or so.
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Skintight costumes? Per (IIRC) the White Queen in a recent issue, 'cause you can’t aim when you’ve got a hard-on. 
Claremont had a weird idea about what unstable molecules did and that was his reasoning for the skin-tight costumes. (He thought they made you bulletproof. He was wrong.)
The main reason is that a significant percentage of the X-Men’s audience are men, and men like looking at women with big boobs in skin-tight costumes.
Fenris
I’m not intending to monopolize your time, Fenris. Thanks for the answers. I promise these will be the last ones (for a while.)
Who was that Marvel guy who was horribly deformed trying to get super-powers? Doctor…something?I always thought he had an amusing story that could have been something fun.
I remember reading a one-shot story about a Flash villian named Cobalt Blue. He had a blue fire sword that would steal the Flash’s (and Kid Flash’s) speed, and he made a evil flash out of the blue fire. Did they ever use him again? He knew who the Flash really was, I just wondered if they cleared that up.